#LiveYourDemocracy

Posts by:Joseph Robertson

Democracy is hard, but also simple; rights supersede powers, always. Any effort by any person or faction to use public office to gain unfair advantage is a crime against democracy. That is how we protect human dignity, freedom, and ingenuity, and ensure we are empowered to build a better future, together.

Even the most senior White House aides must testify, if ordered to by subpoena.

A federal court has ordered former White House Counsel Don McGahn to comply with a Congressional subpoena. The ruling explicitly states that “Presidents are not kings” and that “it is a core tenet of this Nation’s founding that the powers of a monarch must be split between the branches of the government to prevent tyranny.”

The ruling also finds that the President does not have any power to order anyone to disobey a subpoena. Such orders may, in fact, constitute criminal acts.

The conventional wisdom in Washington, DC, holds that convincing 20 Republican senators to vote to remove Donald Trump from the presidency will be impossible. Mitch McConnell has built his Senate majority leadership around the idea of uniform obstruction of Democratic initiatives. But, both have much to worry about, when it comes to a vote on impeachment.

Last night, as he welcomed the audience to a Democratic Party Presidential Primary debate, on the same day the United States Ambassador to the EU testified under oath that President Trump directed an interconinental extortion plot, Rep. John Lewis told the nation “We must save the soul of America.”

In sworn testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Trump’s Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland has confirmed military aid was held up by the President in exchange for a commitment to investigate his political rivals.

Specifically, Sondland testified:

“I know that members of this Committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”

Sondland also testified that he worked “at the express direction of the President” and that leveraging aid to compel Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden “reflected President Trump’s desires and requirements.”

Donald Trump’s smearing and threatening of witnesses, whistleblowers, and investigators are crimes.

US federal law — specifically 18 US Code § 1512. Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant — prohibits any effort to intimidate, threaten, corruptly persuade, or engage in misleading conduct toward (e.g. smear and defame) a witness or whistleblower.